


Moment of Truth

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Golden Lace, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 09:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Golden Lace. In the moments following a betrayal of trust, Gold lets his guard down in order to offer kindness to a hurting, volatile Lacey, and in doing so, they begin to see kindred spirits behind the armour they have built up for themselves over the years.For the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “You said you’d always be there for me…so how did this happen? Why weren’t you there?”





	Moment of Truth

 

"You said you’d always be there for me…so how did this happen? Why weren’t you there?”

Gold didn’t hear the response to this accusatory statement, but he could distinctly hear that the voice of whoever had made it was shaking with both anger and unshed tears, the tone low and on the very edge of rising into a screaming crescendo. He could also distinctly hear that the voice was female and had an Australian accent, which meant that it could really only belong to one person.

“Don’t you ‘but Lace you’ve got to understand’ me!” the voice snapped, and Gold’s suspicions were instantly confirmed. The person who was standing out of sight in the alleyway behind his shop having a one-sided and very emotional conversation was none other than Lacey French. As much as he abhorred eavesdroppers in the regular scheme of life, Gold could not help but be rather concerned by what he had heard from Lacey, and he moved a little closer towards the corner of the building behind which she was ensconced. He had heard running footsteps past his window a couple of minutes before, whilst he had been locking up inside, but he had thought nothing of it. Now, he wondered just what had happened to cause Lacey such obvious distress.

“Oh, something came up, did it?” Lacey said sarcastically. “Would that something have been your cock in close proximity to that buxom blonde from the strip club?”

Gold paused. He didn’t think that he’d ever heard Lacey like this before. She was bold and brash and loud and no matter what was going on, she was always in control of the situation. He had seen her at the Rabbit Hole on the infrequent occasions that he ventured into the club for a drink and a break from the monotony of his days. She had everyone in there wrapped around her little finger, it seemed, the queen of the pool table and the bar. She never had to pay for a drink, and she knew it. To hear her now, so shaken and vulnerable… He knew that she was not intending for anyone to see this display of emotion, lest her reputation as the bad girl in charge of herself and everyone around her become tarnished in some way. Gold could well understand the importance of such a mask. He wore one himself. The town would never see him cry, just as Lacey would never let it see her cry. He knew that he really ought to just leave well alone, pretend that he had not heard anything and move on.

But something, he wasn’t exactly sure what it was, kept him standing there, listening in on her half of a conversation like a creeper. Because if Lacey French was in such a state, had been pushed to a breaking point like this, then something was evidently very wrong, and it didn’t sound like whoever was on the other end of the phone was doing anything to make it better.

“No!” Lacey exclaimed suddenly. “The problem is that I was humiliated in front of your friends because you were too busy screwing someone else to turn up to our date!” There was a pause, her breath coming in hard pants as the force of her outburst took it out of her. “What happened? What the fuck do you think happened you arsehole! I had to smack Keith upside the head with my purse! Oh forget it. Just forget it. We’re done.”

There was silence for almost an entire minute, and then Gold heard a shaky sob, and the sound of fabric scraping against rough brick as someone slid down the wall.

It was probably the worst decision he had ever made in the history of bad decisions, and Gold had several bad decisions behind him, but he knew that Lacey was around that corner, that she was in the middle of a very personal crisis, and considering what he’d heard, he didn’t want to leave her on her own to battle through it.

So he stepped around the corner. Lacey was curled up in a ball, tucked in on herself as she hugged her knees. Gold was surprised by how small she looked. She was a petite person naturally and most of her height came from the ridiculous heels she was never without, but her personality had always filled whatever room she was in, making her seem a lot larger than she actually was. Her shoulders were shaking in silent sobs, and Gold crouched beside her, holding out his handkerchief.

“Lacey?”

She looked up in alarm, and for a moment her eyes were wide like a deer in the headlights as she realised that someone had found her in this state and seen her in this moment of vulnerability. Then the hardness returned and she shook her head, turning her face away from him.

“Fuck off, Gold, leave me in peace.”

Gold didn’t move and Lacey glared at him.

“I told you to fuck off.”

“I know you did. But you might want to have chosen a slightly different hiding place if you wanted to be undisturbed.” He paused. “Would you like to come in for a while until your armour is mended and you’re ready for the world to see you again?”

Lacey looked at him, and he thought he saw the moment in her tear-stained, make-up smeared face when she realised that he was a kindred spirit, and that his offer was nothing malicious, just helping out a fellow whose facade they presented to the world masked something not altogether matching inside. She nodded, taking the handkerchief and wiping her face as Gold stepped around her to open the back door of the shop. She followed him inside, sitting down at the workbench with an air of utter dejection.

“So here I am,” she muttered. “Strong, independent Lacey French who’d never let a man toy with her emotions, a complete wreck.”

“A betrayal of trust always hurts,” Gold said, filling the electric kettle and beginning to make tea. “There’s no shame in feeling hurt when someone you’re close to does something to hurt you. That’s just human.”

“Yeah, the point is that I’m not supposed to be close enough to anyone for such things to bother me.” She looked at the kettle. “Don’t suppose you’ve got anything stronger?”

Gold took down the half empty bottle of Scotch on the top shelf without a word and poured a generous slug into a mug, handing it to Lacey, who downed it in one.

“Careful, that’s prime Glenfiddich,” he said. “It ought to be savoured and appreciated.”

“Yeah, well, I’m used to vodka that you could use to strip paint.”

Nevertheless, Gold poured her another measure, and Lacey took her time with this one, sipping it carefully. He added a shot to his tea and came over to sit opposite her.

“We’re not made of rubber, Lacey. We can pretend that nothing sticks, but it does. The point is that no-one can see it sticking.”

Lacey nodded, staring glumly into the depths of her mug.

“Never let them see you bleed,” she said.

“Precisely.”

They fell into silence, just two souls who had isolated themselves from everything so much that they had no recourse to anything when their walls were breached. Except perhaps each other. Gold knew that when Lacey left his shop, she would be her usual self. It would be as if nothing had happened to crack her resolve and her armour. She would return to her usual haunts tomorrow with the same brightness and brashness that she had always had, and no-one would realise just how much she was hurting inside, because that was the way she liked it.

And Gold, for his part, would go about his day in just the same way as he would have done had he not discovered Lacey hiding in the alley and felt such a pull towards her, answering the call of another desperate soul in need of companionship and care but too used to pushing it away to be able to accept it.

He wanted to tell her that it was all right to cry, that it was natural to react to horrible things that happened to her, but it would have been hypocritical considering his own approach to problems - sweep them under the rug, put that implacable mask on once more and power through. Never let them see you bleed. Never let anyone see you cry. _Never let them know that they have power over you._

“What happened?”

Lacey snorted. “It’s stupid really. I’m stupid. I should have been able to handle it and I just ended up embarrassing myself.”

“What happened?” Gold repeated.

“I’ve been fooling around with Gaston Chevalier for a while,” Lacey said. “And I know I’m the town slut but I’ve only ever been with one guy at a time and I liked to think that maybe he’d have the courtesy to do the same, but no, he figured that the town slut wouldn’t care if he started fooling around with someone else because hey, it’s not like she has feelings.” She snorted. “Kind of shot myself in the foot there with the whole ‘nothing ever phases me and nothing ever makes me emotional’ act.”

“I think even the most unrufflable of persons would have a problem accepting infidelity without batting an eyelid.”

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, we were supposed to be meeting at the Rabbit Hole to play pool with some of his friends, but he didn’t show cause he was too busy fucking Randy Rita from the strip club and so Keith and the other creeps decided that since Gaston was screwing around we must have an open relationship and I was available too. So I smacked him with my purse to let him know what I thought of that notion.”

“I wholeheartedly approve.”

Lacey sighed. “I shouldn’t be so angry about it. But it felt like we’d made a commitment, you know? Not like, marriage or any of that crap. But we were doing the whole boyfriend and girlfriend thing. We were doing stuff together and we had each other’s backs. Until tonight.”

“I think you have every right to be angry about it,” Gold said. “You can’t blame yourself for his wayward dick.”

For the first time, Lacey gave a genuine laugh.

“I like that expression.” She took another sip of her whiskey and let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess at least I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of too many people.”

They fell into silence again, drinking in quiet companionship, until Lacey spoke again, rolling them empty mug between her palms.

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe people just don’t realise that I can hurt because I’ve spent so long making out that I can’t. That I don’t care and nothing bothers me. But I do care. I’m not stupid, I gave up believing in fairy tale happy endings a long time ago, but I’d like to be at least happy, you know? Even if not happy ever after.”

“You’re not happy?”

Lacey looked at him. “Do I look happy?”

“Not right now, no. But in general, yes.”

She held up the empty mug in a toast to him. “Fake it till you make it, Mr G. But then, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? You pretend to be this big gruff beast and yet here you are, sharing your best whisky with me and being all concerned. Just like me. You don’t care what people think of you, you don’t care about anything or anyone, but you do really, deep down.”

Gold nodded. “Whether you want to compare yourself to me or not, I think we’re more alike than perhaps either of us knew.”

Lacey gave a slow nod.

“You said I could stay here until my armour was mended,” she said. “What about when it cracks in the future?” She put the mug down. “What happens then?”

Gold drained his mug.

“I guess that depends. Maybe now that it’s cracked once, when it cracks in the future it won’t be so much of a problem. But if it is, then you know where to find me, and the space to put yourself back together again.”

“I feel kind of bad that you’d only get to see me at my worst,” Lacey said.

“I wouldn’t call it your worse. Perhaps more, your most real.” Gold shrugged. “But after all, you’re seeing the same thing in me.”

For a long time they just sat there, the bottle of whisky on the table between them. Two people with masks lifted, brought together not by appointment but just by circumstance, as if fate had decided to intervene.

Eventually Lacey spoke again.

“My most real,” she said, contemplating the words. “Feels interesting. Not sure I like it. I prefer my armour.”

Gold nodded. “As do I.”

It was still hanging in the air between them, unspoken, the idea that they were comfortable like this with each other but the moment they moved out of the safety of this little cave, they would return to being the people that the rest of the town saw. And conversely, the idea that perhaps they would both miss this little moment of freedom in which they could be themselves, and work out who those selves really were after so long spent trying to be someone else.

Eventually, Lacey got up, wiping the smears from her cheeks with Gold’s handkerchief and making to hand it back to him but then seeing the make-up stains and faltering, shoving it in her purse instead.

“I think the patch job will hold,” she said, and she nodded towards the whisky. “Thanks for the glue.”

Gold gave a brief smile. “You’re welcome.”

She paused with her hand on the door handle, and turned back to him. “Can I see you again?”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “You see me every day in town. I’m hardly a recluse, as mysterious as I try to remain.”

“No. Not like that. You know what I mean.”

He inclined his head. “If you’ll permit me the same courtesy.”

Lacey nodded. “It’s nice to have someone who understands.”

“Yes, it is.”

There was another long pause, and Lacey let her hand slip from the door handle. She took measured steps across the room, and leaned in to kiss Gold’s cheek. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Although she did not look back as she left the shop, Gold found that he did not mind. He knew that he would be seeing her again soon, and seeing the real her that she had permitted herself to show him tonight. They might have been brought together in the aftermath of hurt and betrayal, but perhaps something good could come from this uninhibited moment of truth between them.

 


End file.
